Because I Love You
by MinaRobins
Summary: Those that conceal their deeds correctly continue on with life, hidden in the midst with everyone else. Regina Mills was such an anomaly. She has survived long enough to nurture a family around her. They aren't there as part of her disguise. She loves them, she truly does. AU. Serial killer Regina Mills


**Title**: Because I Love You

**Author**: MinaRobins

**Fandom**: Once Upon A Time

**Pairing**: SwanQueen

**Rating**: R One-Shot

**Summary**: There are countless types of monsters inhabiting the world. Some are killers that slaughter in blind rage and gleefully play in their victim's blood. There are others that stalk their prey until nightfall shadows their approach and allows them to drag their unwitting target's unconscious body back to their dens. There's so little needed to break the finicky control humanity has on their animalistic ferocity. Those that don't hide their actions well enough are exposed to the incensed and normal populace. Those that conceal their deeds correctly continue on with life, hidden in the midst with everyone else. Regina Mills was such an anomaly. She has survived long enough to nurture a family around her. They aren't there as part of her disguise. She loves them, she truly does. AU. Serial killer Regina.

**Dedicated to InsaneTwin on Tumblr and apparently SaneTwin here. **

**Honestly, Megan, people in the SQ fandom are going to think I'm a crazy masochistic psychopath because of your kinks. **

…

Emma stretched until she felt her vertebrate pop, and then rolled over to where her wife would lay; though it doesn't surprise her that the silken bed sheets had long lost Regina's body heat. She kicked off the blankets that pooled around her waist and basked for a moment in the early morning sunrise, enjoying the prickling sensation of warmth that cocooned her in languid comfort.

A soft knock announced the presence of Regina's entrance, in her arms was a breakfast tray. The oven warmed plate held sunny-side up eggs that practically oozed onto the golden toast and came along with a tall glass of milk. Emma personally preferred orange juice in the morning, but in their household, they never drank anything acidic on an empty stomach.

"Breakfast in bed?" Emma licked her lips and grinned as she shuffled up to lean against the headboard. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes shot wide open in alarm, the lethargic fog of being barely awake leaving immediately. "Did I forget something, oh fuck, I mean duck! Regina, don't just smirk at me, Christ! Shit!" Emma clamped her hands over her lips and dipped her head, casting her eyes to focus on her knees. She had cut almost all profanity use whilst at home since Henry's birth, but sometimes when she stressed over missed anniversaries, the swearing just flew past her mental barriers as a coping mechanism.

"No, of course not, darling." Regina smoothed a hand along Emma's thigh and glided down and over her knees, setting the other woman's legs straight so she could place down the meal she had created. "I just enjoy cherishing my wife."

Emma blushed, embarrassed that Regina's doting could always dust her pale features with pleasure. "You sure know how to spoil a girl."

"Always." Regina carded her fingertips through the thick mess of curls, enjoying the fact that Emma relished in her attention. That Emma didn't shrink away from her hands. "I'm just going to wake up our son and get him started on his meal."

Emma had long learnt that it was best not to bargain with Regina's austere regiment. It didn't matter that it was the weekend; Henry should already be downstairs, dressed and ready for breakfast. There was a particular time for sleep and for relaxation and seeing how the taps in the hallway bathroom were already running; it must have meant that Henry had now arisen.

"Alright." Emma answered conversationally as she carefully lifted her toast, leaning to hover over the tray to ensure that none of the crumbs would skitter onto their linens. Though to be perfectly honest, no matter how cautiously she ate, Regina would still change their bed sheets.

…

_The first time Cora had bestowed a truly pleased smiled to her was when she had been 7. _

_She had wondered into her mother's private study, a place no one was ever allowed in, but **she** was, because her mother loved her. The flawless mirror that was encased in the bookshelves seemed to have lost a bit of its width. Regina had crept up to the perfect piece of vanity and curiously pushed her fingers into the slot in between the mirror and shelves. As she tugged, the mirror glided back to reveal a sparse room that had floors covered in cheap black linoleum. The rest of the room was of no importance to her because at the middle of the area, strapped to a chair was a girl in her early teens. Her limbs were all bounded by leather buckles, the restraints were tight enough to cause an ugly purple bruising to the flesh it touched. The most noticeable blemish was the claw like handprint that marked around the unconscious girl's pale neck. With shaking fingertips Regina had reach out and daintily pressed onto the splotchy colours, almost certain that it had to be make up, some elaborate play._

The girl's eyes popped open in fright, but her panicky grunts were silenced by the choker jabbed into her mouth.

_Instinctively Regina instantly knew that this was no game but a dire secret that she should never have pried into. If her mother found her here she would surely be punished and it would be for her own good. She gripped her small hand over the already bruised jugular, squeezing desperately to silence the girl's growing struggles. When one hand wasn't enough she brought up both to choke around the girl's neck. Exasperated droplets rolled down her cheeks to match the terrified streams of tears that flowed from the teen's eyes. She had never witness someone sobbing so hard in her entire life. It was disgusting, the tears and mucus dribbling pitifully together. The weeping teen wouldn't stop struggling and her clammy hands were shaking too much to strangle the breath out of the girl. Regina shot out her hand to pinch close the girl's nostrils, managing to push her into an unconscious state after combining the pressures from both her hands. The restraints were enough to keep the captured victim stationary, but Regina's dismayed revulsion overcame her fear of her mother and made her stop before she caused the girl to die by asphyxiation._

_When she had stumbled away terrified, darting back towards the mirror door she blinked up at a charmed Cora. She had expected her mother to be furious, to discipline her, to hit her. She had never expected a bright and pride filled smile to creak across her mother's taunt lips. Cora was a natural socialite and that was how her parents had met. Henry's family strongly resented Cora and saw her only as a money craving gold-digger that married rich when she had become pregnant with Regina. It would have been better if Regina was born male, then even if Henry died, the family would still keep her mother and her in the household. _

_"I saw what you did, dear." Cora's voice was silky and dark as she brought her hand down to rest on top of Regina's head, letting her hand drift and comb through her daughter's hair. "Well done."_

_Regina had been shuddering, wanting, for once in her life to be punished since she felt like she truly deserved it this time. Nonetheless, she finally got the chance to witness her mother beam a truly joyful smile towards her. Regina could only hopefully grin back, pleased that her mother seemed to actually love her. _

_"You really are **mine**." Cora cooed in an unbelievably sweet tone as she bent to press a kiss to Regina's crown. "Perhaps a daughter **was** better than a son."_

…

_Her song bird cowered away from her hands as she moved to change the food and water trays. The lovely little thing that used to sing and chirp such ecstatic songs for her shrank back into the corner of its cage, not making a single sound until Regina allowed her fingertips to stroke down its quivering back. _

_As her supposedly calming motions continued, the bird eventually broke into a shrill, warning chirp. It was repetitive and obnoxious in her usually quiet room. Why didn't her pet like her anymore, could it sense that her hands had aided her mother's slaughter? That she had savoured the time she had spent with her parent? And stood feebly by as she watched the luscious blood drained from the girl's neck? The colour far too vibrant as it slurped out of the wound; bubbling up from the serration and from the girl's lips in a hue and texture that altered in shade and richness. Regina had inquisitively swished her hand into the collected basin of ruby liquid. The heat and life the fluids contained infused through the pores of her hands and made her shiver in excitement. _

_The girl's identity was reviewed to be a daughter of a maid that had once abused Cora and Regina when they had first arrived to the mansion. The girl's mother was haughty thing and held the same contempt towards Cora and Regina that the head mistress cultivated among the staff towards the pair._

_'Never take the life of those in your immediate circle. Punishment doled out to those that they love allows you the pleasure of viewing the progression of their dismal heartbreak. Death is a far too kind fate for those that trespass against us.' _

_She couldn't lie to herself, couldn't contain the vindictive and righteous ire towards her pet's rejection. What would it be like to maim such an animal, to take its wing out and as its pupils dilated in fear, its chest pumped out in its gasping breaths she held its appendage. What would it be like to grind each of its wings between her forefingers? To hear the delicate bones splinter under her supremacy and then nonchalantly move to break the other? Why not just crush the damn squawking thing in both her hands straightaway?_

_That'll teach it to cull her approach, to resent the time she had been willing to gift her pet. Regina ignored the blood that seeped from the cut on her hand when her pet's beak pierced through her skin. She watched in enraptured amusement as its petite body crunched into itself. Its life draining out of its bright eyes as she carelessly dropped it to the bottom of the cage. She sat as a spectator to the creature that had barred her touch, giggled as it gurgled and choked on its own blood. _

_Cora had seen the careless display Regina had left for the entire world to see and beaten Regina to an inch of her life. Her mother had broken her collar bone and had throttled her until she thought that she might die in the same manner as her pet. Regina never again allowed a body to remain exposed to the people around her. Her mother taught her why they always drained the messy spoiling copper liquid, how to bleed out their victims while keeping them still slightly alive, how to peel the muscles and tendons from bone. They packaged the flesh to feed to the strays that wondered into their lands. If there were too many pounds of meat, they would send it to the closes pound. _

_Cora was especially fond of taking a human's heart and clenching it in her hands, chuckling as the organ oozed out between the spaces between her fingers and leached into the areas under her nails. The bones were grinded and used as fertilizer for their garden. Silvery grey dust sprinkled onto the soil that nursed unassuming flowers. Cora always kept the skulls of her victims though; she enjoyed lining them up against the back wall, and loved the thrill of seeing another head added to her growing collection. _

_It took years for Regina to attain the dexterity required to dismember a body as swiftly and efficiently as Cora. She was taught the different ligaments and sometimes they would peel the top layer of the epidermis. They would watch their victim's muscles and bones worked inevitably against the harnesses that kept their prey stationary. She familiarized herself with each tendon, sinew and cell of the human body and found elegant ways to induce pain. It was a game they would play, to see how much agony one could induce before their toy passed out, their victim's brain shutting their consciousness down because of the overload. It's the body's mechanism to preserve its wellbeing and it was ironic that the moment their targets fainted it also meant that the game was over and that death was now eminent. _

_After such a procedure they would always scrub clean in the showers Cora had installed herself. The entire hidden chamber had been built by Cora's hand. Her father had been an architect and a social nobody, Cora had gone to school to pursue a degree in architecture but the faculty had refused her on the basis of her sex. It was a different time and Cora had stubbornly learnt all that she could from her father and taught herself the rest. But she was never good enough; her craftsmanship wasn't noted by higher payers due to her humble origins. Cora felt that her expertise belonged in higher standings than the common folk she and her father diligently served. _

_Mother and daughter would rinse their bodies, using a disposable loofah to scrape off all trace of gore and blood. When their skin was itching under the blistering streams of water they would comb through their hair, slicking it with shampoo and rinsing the remaining human residue with heavy duty cleaner. Only when they had conditioned their tresses, smoothed their maltreated skin with expensive lotions and completed caring for their appearance would exit their little secret. _

_…_

_Cora became more reclusive, less willing to don her mask and venture into the social array. There was no reason for her to over indulge in the aristocratic society now that she had company at home. A darling girl born from her own body that lived and breathed for the annihilation of good clean prey. Cora had always been restrictive with Regina and only increased her control once Regina joined her in their evening trips into the city. Mother a daughter bonding over the sacrifice of a life. _

_Regina both loved and strained away from the suffocating attention. The more Cora stiflingly coiled around Regina's activities the more spoiled she felt by the attention. They had carried on for quite some time until Regina met Daniel and something sutured within her fractured psyche and she thought that she'll have love. It was delusional kind of saccharine gentleness that she could never understand and felt too depraved to own. Eventually she began to pull away from her mother and Cora was none too pleased._

_Regina was Cora's. They were all they had and the only allegiance worth sharing. At least that was what Cora saw in her daughter. Regina was hers._

_But fledgling love is passionate and reckless, the young lover's discussed of eloping but Cora caught wind. Regina's mother did little to hinder them after receiving the news. She offered Regina a passive glance and then after embracing her child goodbye sent her off. Regina had sprinted all the way to where she was to meet Daniel but he was missing. Regina persisted by the out-of-city transit for the entire night but Daniel never appeared. She later received a letter with his handwriting that spoke of his reluctance to commit and whilst he was apologetic for his disappearance he found himself unable to entertain their 'meaningless' relationship any longer. _

_For years she held the belief that it was her mother's doing, but Cora had been nothing by supportive in the whole ordeal. It shamed Regina to even considered thinking that her mother would do such a thing towards her. How could she question the **one** loving figure in her life? Someone that cultivated and accepted her deviated desires? _

_Dates with special occasions were meaningless in their lives and only kept with to keep with society's odd idiosyncratic expectations. Birthdays were just like any other day and required no extra attention. It was on her 25th, when she had been caring for the assortment of skulls that she found one particular cranium that had been shattered in the back and the even the front. _

_The entire parietal and occipital bones had been caved in which was very unusual since Cora prized her assembly of skeletal heads. The gaping hole was a sign of a violent and impassioned want to hurt and damage. Cora was often enthused by the need to wreck her fury onto their prey but never with such frenzied emotions. The skull's nasal cavity was completely caved-in and its mandible had been missing, the entire row of teeth connected to the maxilla had been plucked out pre-death since there was evident struggle. It took Regina hours to find the mandible that lay intact and hidden beneath crack in the corner of the chamber. She had made an impression of the bottom jaw and through her mother's networking managed to dig up Daniel's dental information._

It was a match.

_…_

_The last time she had ever spoken to Cora was when she had strapped her mother into the torture chair. Same as their countless victims, nameless higher ups that had zero relations to them. Cora flavoured those individuals that have strived and achieved in their life. She took it as a personal offense for those people to grow and become better beyond her. She resented the world and she needed to harm those that wronged her. _

_Everything was so mechanical at this point; from the drugging of her parent to the strapping of the buckles. Her hands were tools, weapons that knew their duty to hurt. She would not torture today, she would not be the one to administer Cora's due allotment of punishment._

_Regina hesitated as she brought the knife up to Cora's throat. The shine of her favoured tool shimmered under the bright overhead lights. She knew what to do; the trough was ready for the steady flow of blood. And even as the sharpened edge nicked into the papery skin of her mother's neck she couldn't completely go through with it. She wavered over the slaughter of her parent; she would be completely alone in the world as her mother had been in the beginning. Would she go and seek out company as her mother had done? Marry off to some man that meant nothing to her for the wealth and stability to further her addiction?_

_Cora had leered up at Regina with stark disappointment in her eyes. "You can't be weak, Regina, that's not the daughter I raised."_

_"We're repulsive; you've raised a monster to follow in your ghastly past time." Regina paused, her hands trembling as she held up the hunting knife. There was no doubt that she was going to carry through with this. The moment that the results had come back positive was when she knew that she would be the one to end her mother's life. It was not for some greater good of protecting the populace but only to settle the seething fiend that demanded vengeance. The monster that Cora had saw and then continued to encourage in their years of carnage together. "Why, mother, why do you kill?"_

_Cora quirked her eyebrow tranquilly, she already knew when she felt the tingling sensation of a black out after her evening tea that Regina had found out about her deed. That her daughter was about to exact out retribution for such a slight. Cora could've gotten rid of Daniel's skull, but she wanted to be able to always look at the fissured cranium. To know that she had another victory, that she was the one that got to own Regina. "Because there was always resentment in me, a divine evil that I couldn't control, it needed to collide out into the world and punish everything that was out there. I stopped whilst I was pregnant with you but I **had** to continue after you were born. So many little things just infuriate me and it draws out the absolute worst responses. It makes me irrational and hazardously cruel. To give into blind rage is what will kill you, my love. It's why I'm here now. I couldn't lose you to a boy that wanted only to fuck you. Anyways," Cora smirked, her ruby lips splitting open into a wide smile. "Somewhere along the way I just thought how it was such a waste to let their deaths be in vain and I started … experimenting…. You know what I mean… Their ability to withstand pain is a truly remarkable thing to witness, don't tell me it doesn't thrill you." _

_"Mother, why wouldn't you quit for me though?" Regina's voice was cracked, hoarse as she begun to silently sob._

"I killed others because I cared far too much whether I would harm **you**." Cora smiled again, knowing that the conversation was coming to a close. In her death she'll be the only family member Regina had ever killed. In a way she could still keep her daughter. "Remember that I did it because I love you."

_"Goodbye, mother," Regina muttered as she griped her fingers around Cora's throat but instead of choking the breath, she only brushed her digits gently over the skin. _

_The slice from her knife was too deep; the blade getting caught in Cora's vertebrate. It forced Regina to use an extensive amount of force to yank the metal clean through. She still has a scar from where the knife nicked into her own hand. She sometimes looks at it in bittersweet fondness and thinks of her mother._

_…_

Emma's parents had once teased Regina, on not appearing like the type to be able to share a spouse. A family of two was truly what Regina could be settled with for the rest of her livelihood. Emma on the other hand wanted a family of her own; she had grown up in a household with three other siblings, where she had been the eldest and had practically raised her siblings along with her rather absentminded, but caring father and doting mother. For the first five years of their marriage Emma restrained from bringing up the topic that put Regina on a tight edge but in the end Regina had only wanted to provide whatever would bring her wife happiness so she consented to a family of three.

For the longest time she hadn't wanted to be the one to carry their child. Unfortunately, Emma had been unable to conceive due to her short but vibrant past in her teens and the abortion she had had in her youth aided absolutely nothing. Emma had been in highschool then and had no want to follow in her parent's footsteps and marry the first teenager that caught her fancy. At least her parents were truly in love; she had only wanted to see what the fuss over boys was all about.

Every time a pregnancy wouldn't take, her wife would curl away in self-distain. Regina felt very little for the world, but for Emma she found herself experiencing far too much. To anyone that cause anguish to her wife meant a swift verdict for punishment no matter how difficult her prey. Regina abhorred watching Emma shrivel up into self-induced depression that she had in part created so she agreed that they would take turns.

Her own first try had been miraculously successful. Her anxiety mounted over the course of the next nine months, fretting over the likelihood of her offspring being as demented as herself. There was always the chance that she would pass on whatever gene that made her so disconnected from everyone else. She had requested that Emma's egg be used. In the end Emma managed to convince her otherwise. She was worried that whatever escaped could only cause lingering damage to her family. The evil inside that was so willing to slaughter others to keep her demons at bay might be transferred onto her fetus. Would her child be as deranged as she and her own mother was like? Would the spilt blood of their victims cause their hearts to quicken in delight? Would the lifeless and glassy eyes of the morsels that they dismember become a vision of loveliness?

It had been no small relief when the first sonogram showed a boy growing within her instead of a girl. She didn't even want to think about what she would have done to get rid of the fetus that incubated within her own body if she found out that she would give birth to a daughter. For surely her child would only follow in her footsteps?

She was tainted and nothing good could possibly be found and yet she couldn't bring herself to rid the life that festered inside of her. Emma was so elated that the pregnancy was keeping; Regina was unable to withhold motherhood from Emma. Regina cared next to nothing for anyone else's inability to conceive, but Emma mattered to her and that was what she kept in mind as she allowed the boy to continue to drain her livelihood like a parasite.

Even after Henry's birth she had been rather disjointed from the need to include herself in his life, always apprehensive that she would blacken and corrupt his innocent soul. She knew how to play the caring mother since she only needed to mimic the act Cora displayed when she had been a child and there were others present. She loved Henry in an obligated kind of way since he brought Emma joy.

Though not every emotion was out of duty, there were things that Regina liked about her son as well. In the way that his smiled managed to mimic Emma's. How incredibly clever and determined he was. And how he eventually grew out of his round dimpled cheeks, it made her realize that her family was progressing and no harm had befallen them. He was her child and while she knew that she would never allow him to become remotely like her, she entertained the idea that she wasn't as alone in the mental imbalance. There were times when diminutive Henry could be vengeful and ferocious. There were signs that he was a bit disturbed and had the capacity to be vicious if cultured by Regina alone. Thankfully, Emma was the bright center of their family. Her attention and lively but practical approach eventually caused the aggressive tendencies Henry displayed as a toddler to gradually dissipate.

Though during his childhood, Henry would sometimes glance up with his precocious and trusting eyes when Regina sang him a lullaby before bed and she knew that he suspected something was off. That she didn't quite function like everyone else, that she was the cause of his dissonance with normality.

It nauseated her to realize that maybe her own child would betray her to Emma and then she would lose her entire family. She anguished over the possibility that Henry could be turned into something just as mad as her, just as broken.

Regina half expects to wake up one night tied to a chair about to get her neck split open, so she takes extra precautions to keep Henry far from her nighttime activities. He was a sweet child when he was on his best behaviour and through Emma's guidance continued to be healthy and ordinary. But Regina knew that in her son was the aptitude for violence and a capability to be vindictive to the point of evil.

She set up her own chambers of operation in the bottom of her father's mausoleum. It was morbid but gorgeous to be able to drop the façade of normalcy. To house all the trophies she kept from her prey within a tomb for however long she pleased. She had no want to muddle her granite cavern with clunky and decaying skulls, but instead decided on treasured emblems of her picking. It could be a broach, a ring, a button if she so choose and she kept each separate item in the minute drawers she had lining every inch of her concrete walls. She would take whatever caught her fancy and palm her trinket. Bringing a scented handkerchief to her nose to recall the person it had belonged to. Settle in the memories of her victim's delicate, shuddering last breaths or the magnificent ear piercing screams for mercy. Souvenirs of her encounter with death. The fatalities of her game paying the expenses needed to be ferried through Acheron by Charon; permitting her to linger near the beauty that was the depth of darkness that waited all that struggled on this Earth.

…

This was an aggravating game that Regina now had to humour to ensure her deeds remained hidden, that she stayed indiscernible from any other human being. That Emma never found out about her less than acceptable pastime and perhaps got the notion to leave her. It was hard to ascertain when her discipline would vanish and she'll necessitate a death. So as the time of need drew near she could become very dangerous to those that she cared for. She had never lashed out at Emma and only once had Henry witnessed her loss of composure whilst dealing with a particularly dim subordinate. The closer she got to succumbing to the tenacious pleasure of the hunt, the more unhinged she would become.

But because she loves Emma and her child, she must continue this pretence.

The front door clicked open and Regina felt herself smiling around her glass of bourbon and cider. "Welcome home, dear."

Emma glided into the living room and bent to press a kiss to her wife's lips. "Mmmm, taste like that has a bite of cinnamon." She frowned a little and plucked the slice of apple that had been cut and slid onto the rim of the tumbler. "Are you heading out of town this weekend?"

"Have I become so predictable?" Regina asked as she tilted her head, a quirk in her lips, but her tone carries a hint of apology as she continued. "It's an unavoidable business trip."

"I know." Emma waved one of her hands at the air as if to push away Regina's encroaching departure in the morning. "I can still miss you, can't I?"

"Of course, as you should." Regina teased as she lifted a lid from a mug that sat on the coffee table by her lounge chair. "I've made your favourite."

"Yeeesss, thank you," Emma replied enthusiastically as she tugged off her thick scarf and shed her winter coat. "Oh you even put in some hand whipped cream for me!"

Regina held up a cinnamon stick that sat on the same tray to Emma and watched as she carefully pushed her curls behind her ears before taking the spice to swirl the cream into the steaming drink. She brought the mug up towards her nose with both of her chilled hands and inhaled deeply. "'Gina," She purred in appreciation. "You're letting me have Tuaca and cider on a school night? What if I am too sluggish to drive Henry to class?"

"I trust that you will ensure that he is on time." Regina knew that while Emma would joke. She also understood how punctuality was of importance. Henry's perfect attendance was not in jeopardy over tonight's event.

"Scooch over."

"Darling, it's an armchair meant for one."

"Well good thing we're married because I'm going to call up some two have become one; marriage nonsense." Emma quipped as she placed her drink onto the side table and settled into Regina's open arms. She shifted until she wasn't on Regina's lap but in the space between her legs and stroked her fingertips over the indention on the amused lips. "How long do you think you'll be gone this time?"

Regina placed her glass next to the half emptied mug and wrapped her arms around Emma's back, soothing her hand up and down to chase away the remaining cold. "Just till Monday night, if I could postpone it, you know I would."

"That's almost four days, half a week without you?" Emma clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and then moved to claim the other woman's sweetened lips. "Better make my goodbye memorable."

…

Regina's touch always started off far too delicately whenever she had to leave for a work related trip but the pressure progressively increased almost as if out of her control. Her grip became tighter than usual and her bites leave marks that will remain for the morning rays to highlight. Its tiny changes that all add up to the alteration, Regina's eyes spark a terrifying kind of hunger that had frightened Emma when they first slept together. Sleep was a hard thing for Regina to attain and there were many nights when Emma would open her eyes to the shining obsidian pupils that were as harden as any animals. The purposeful movements of a politician gave way to motions that reminded her of barely contained lunges from a tigress. Regina had a handful of miniscule tells that couldn't always be hidden. Emma has seen the way Regina would close her eyes in meditation, physically stopping and mentally reigning herself in before continuing.

"It's okay, I know, I know." Emma mumbled back against the other woman's lips, tangling her fingers into Regina's short, tidy tresses to drag her closer. "I'll miss you too, it's okay."

Regina hooked her fingers onto the waistline of Emma's panties and raked her fingernails down the creamy skin and tightening muscles beneath. As her partner arched her hips up into Regina's demanding touch she lost contact of the kiss bruised lips and voiced an impatient growl. She had to remind herself of control, of being gentle and to never draw blood. Never let the glistening, rushing, rivets to be drawn out of Emma's body.

Emma's hands slide over Regina's shoulders, working the blouse off and then skimming her fingertips over the skin exposed to her, trailing her caress down onto the curve of Regina's ass. She took a moment to enjoy tugging Regina closer before letting the pads of her hand follow over the protrusion of Regina's hip bone and then to the front of the skirt. She flicked the clasps opened and watched as Regina angled back onto her knees and shimmied out of the tight constricting piece to reveal the top of her lacy stockings, held up by a garter belt in similar design but sans any kind of underwear.

"Fu-" Emma clamped her mouth shut at the disproval she could feel in Regina's quirked eyebrow and instead surged forward to press her lips against the divot of Regina's navel, letting her tongue slide out against the velvet skin as she drifted her hands onto Regina's hip bones. She pushed closer, the springs in the mattress making Regina shift and lean back until she was sitting. Emma eagerly crawled closer, hooking her arms underneath Regina's thighs. She lavished her tongue from perineum to clit in long deliberate strokes, grinning as she felt Regina's fingers fall onto her shoulders and then slide up into her hair, yanking her forward. Emma smoothed her thumb over the slick folds and then pressed into the exposed clitoris, rolling her digit in a steady rhythm as she delved her tongue deeper into Regina's clenching walls.

Regina gasped and shakingly fell onto her back, letting her head loll onto the edge of the bed whilst trying unsuccessfully to rock her hips in tandem. Emma knew her too well and after waiting all afternoon for her to return home Regina was at the point coming even though they had barely begun. She could stall the hours of needing fresh blood with Emma's skin and touch alone but she hadn't expected to be the first to lose her composure. She had wanted to own Emma, to have her on her front, on her knees and hands; so Emma wouldn't be able to see the blood lust that flickered and smothered in her own eyes. To clasp her hand lightly around Emma's throat as she pistoled her fingers into the other woman and curled her body around and on top. Both to protect and claim, this was her own, this was her family and no one else will ever harm it. She wouldn't tolerate anyone and especially not herself to devastate what they have. She would drape against Emma's taunt, sweat slicked back, drawing deep breaths from the crook of Emma's neck, the golden mane cloaking her ravenous gaze as she fucked and loved her wife.

"Emma!" Regina hissed as three fingers drove into her and she rose up to meet the attention. The rough almost painful friction hardly being accounted for as her juices gushed onto Emma's digits, coating them and then dripping down the other woman's wrist and onto bed sheets. She delighted when Emma was particularly carnal with her desires. It allowed her to pretend that own needs were less sinful and made her feel more human for wanting this kind of treatment, to be taken with an ounce of pain mixed into the experience. "**More**."

Emma hummed in acquiescence and added a fourth finger, curling them towards herself and rubbed against the ribbed inner walls but preventing Regina from coming, wanting to keep her at the verge of unraveling. She built an unsteady beat with her hands, twisting her wrist as she crossed her index and middle finger to increase the pressure. After an exquisite and torturous while, Emma turned her head and leaned her cheek into Regina's trembling thigh. She could feel that any more would just be cruel so she sped up her pace instead of pausing and switching maneuvers whenever Regina's bucking got too excited.

Regina had been on the cusp of coming since they had fallen into their bed and the sudden focused attention had her dropping her hands onto the linens below her, scraping her nails deep into the sheets and imagining that it was Emma's skin beneath her fingertips. She never wanted to draw blood from her wife, not really, but what was the harm in pretending, to give herself that extra push over and into oblivion. Regina cried out as she thrashed into a climax, Emma's hands continued their motion, never slowing even as the muscles clenched and made her thrusts harder to maintain. This was the kind of fucking that Regina enjoyed and it was always a special treat when Emma was willing to provide it to her. There were tears at the corner of Regina's eyes as she squeezed them shut, her hips stilling in their undulations as her body snapped at the pent up energy and sensations, finally allowing herself to crumble into the quivering chaos of euphoria.

Emma freed her hand and then rubbed them evenly over Regina's turgid and painfully sensitive nipples. She waited for Regina's heart palpitations to settle but was unable to stop from touching, caressing, loving. When they were glistening with juices, Emma leaned up to lap at what she painted; taking the essence and flavouring as a delicacy. She moved forward to straddle and pressed herself into Regina's thigh.

Regina habitually bent and angled her knee, loving it as Emma's eyes closed involuntarily in pleasure. She wrapped her fingers around the other woman's neck and guided her down for a kiss, enjoying the taste of herself on Emma's tongue. Her other hand gripped possessively onto Emma's hip, keeping her in place.

There were hours before she would have to find a new lamb for the slaughter.

…

Emma had questioned her once why she had to leave at least monthly to deal with an out of town business. When they had first gotten together Regina would disappear for months on end to settle the beast that rattled inside the bones of her body. Emma was her ideal prey; she had a family Regina dreamed and concocted in her mind back in her childhood. The White's were never particularly rich, but they were content and there was a certain love between Mary Margaret and David that reminded Regina of what she and Daniel may one day had had. She enjoyed sitting with Mary Margaret and listening to the ups and downs of being teenage parents and how Emma was possibly the most stubborn out of all their children. Their family had countless photos and self-made videos that stocked up the crowded shelves in their homey abode. Things that Cora had always seen as tacky were treasured in this house, macaroni picture frames and hand print turkeys cluttered up the window sills.

Emma had been quite rebellious in her teens and there were rather embarrassing photographs to prove it. Emma had piercings and dyed hair in all assortments of colour that clashed with every single piece of fabric she tacked onto her body. Mary Margaret had shown one particular family photo to Regina that had 16 year old Emma perched at the end of the suede brown photo room sofa. Everyone were laughing like David had just told the most hilarious joke, even sullen Emma only managed to keep her eyebrows furrowed since her lips were turned up into a reluctant smile. David and Mary Margaret had brought that particular photo out almost as if it was a coveted good since Emma had destroyed all evidence of her mortifyingly angsty teenage rebellion phase when she got older.

This woman was cherished, she had gone the wrong path but righted herself and even whilst Emma had been the most obnoxious of teenagers she had always been there for her siblings. Emma was someone that seemed so impossibly noble that Regina wished she had darker thoughts hidden behind those beguiling hazel eyes. If Emma was as internally twisted as she was, it would at least give reason to Regina's reluctance to take her life and instead of wanting to make something sustainable happen between them. No mattered how much she desired it, Emma was as normal as the surrounding humans around her. The wild and murderous tendencies having been breed out of her over the thousands of years of evolution.

Regina shifted out of the duvet and moved to pick up the discarded pieces of clothing, folding them neatly and arranging them onto the vanity. Regina returned to the edge of the mattress, sitting to lean against the headboard of Emma's side of the bed. She carded her fingers through the tangle blonde curls and mocked scratched her fingers down to cradle around Emma's neck. She didn't want Emma to be like her at all. Regina wanted to preserve the goodness, the pearl whiteness that reflected the family name.

If Regina squeezed would she see Emma's eyes jolt wide open in alarm or would her wife just accept that she had harboured a monster in her bed. Would Emma shriek and yell, would she fight and be the one to end Regina's reign of horrors? There would at first be disbelief, Emma would debate whether it a dream. Then there would be the acceptance and struggle, a sticky sweet fright as the life was choked from her body.

That would be a scenario that Regina would never test because there were so many more deserving individuals out there that required her hand. She would slaughter everyone last human out there and even end herself before she would ever lay a finger on either Emma or Henry.

Regina ghosted her thumb over the cartilage at the centre of Emma's throat, the beast howling within her mind, craving for bloodshed. Regina watched as Emma slumbered on, drawing one serene breath after another, never knowing of the danger that was housed in their home. It was time to go; she wouldn't be able to restrain herself for much longer. Regina pecked her sleeping partner's lips one more time before uttering in a reverent, pleading voice, just in case Emma ever found out that she moonlighted as a killer, perhaps she would remember that Regina did it all for only one reason.

"I do it, because I love you."


End file.
